BBC News: Labour urges technical universities for jobs boost

The publication of the Social Market Foundation’s latest pamphlet, Robbins Rebooted, in which Shadow Universities Minister Liam Byrne sets out his vision for the future of Higher Education, attracted widespread coverage today.

Prof Steve West, Chair of University Alliance, was quoted in the BBC News coverage of the story.

“Access is not just about getting young people into elite universities” and that already there was “positive work that is going on right across the higher education sector”.

Meanwhile Times Higher Education highlighted how University Alliance’s HELP proposals – which offer clear thinking and simple steps to enabling universal access to student loans for the future time while bring down the massive cost of the current loan system – were recognised by Mr Byrne in his publication.

Mr Byrne praises the “compelling” model of a £10,000 loan for taught master’s students set out by the IPPR, as well as the “important alternative” of a lifetime loan allowance set out by the University Alliance.

Both ideas “funds permitting…need to be given serious consideration by an incoming HE minister in 2015”, he says.